When he heard the fear in Feng Rubing’s voice, he instinctively thought of stopping her in fear that she would have a mental breakdown once again. “Don’t continue anymore. Please, just rest—”

“Don’t interrupt me!”

“Rubing, I’m just worried—”

“Listen to me!” Feng Rubing sucked in a breath through her nose and glared at him balefully. “If you won’t let me speak today, I won’t ever tell you about it again.”

“Then…” Rong Jian’s mouth opened and closed, but in the end, he didn’t stop her again. After all, he really wanted to know about her past, and he wished to fully clear her from being known as a murderer.

Feng Rubing took a deep breath before speaking. “On that day, I followed my grandmother’s instructions. I used my young age as an excuse and proposed to break up with him temporarily so that I could focus on my studies. I told him that I would come see him again once I graduated from university. He didn’t agree. He first tried to cajole me however he could, saying things like how he would take care of me, that I didn’t need to continue studying. I pretended to refuse, and when I picked up my bag to leave, he dragged me into his room and beat me up. And then…”

At that, she stopped and shot a pained smile at Rong Jian, her expression screaming ‘you should know’. A few moments later, she finally spoke again. “From that day onward, he imprisoned me and treated me as a toy for his frustrations. If I even dared to utter ‘no’, he would whip me with his belt. He would even threaten me, telling me that he would spread the news about me being a homewrecker to tarnish my name. He went as far as to say that he would kill me and Grandma. I was young, and I was so scared then. I didn’t have any notion of running away at all. I thought that if I just kept my head down and followed his wishes, then I could go back to those days when he spoiled me. Who would have thought that he would get bored of toying with me and actually decide to sell me? I absolutely wouldn’t stand for it, and I was beaten until my whole body was covered in injuries. With his wife’s help, I escaped back home that night. Grandma took me away from Linhe Province on that very same night. I only got to know from my grandmother as we made our way out that she had long known that that man was vile. Grandma had already sold our house off, and she also pretended that I was down with a severe illness so that she could withdraw me from school. She did this, all for when the chance to spirit me away from that hellhole would arise.”

Rong Jian gritted his teeth. “What’s his name?”

Feng Rubing went rigid for a moment, her gaze distant. “I don’t know his real name. Everyone called him Boss. I used to call him Mister, but I later took to calling him Honey.”

Rong Jian was at a loss for words. Internally, he was trying to figure out how to get someone to search out that animal so that he could deal with him.

Seeing how he didn’t continue to speak, Feng Rubing went on. “We hadn’t left Linhe for long when Grandma secretly went back to Linhe First Middle School to look for the principal so that I could continue my studies. She got on her knees and begged him to keep the matter of my transfer a secret. When the principal found out about what happened to me from my grandmother, he was shocked. He wanted her to report it to the police, but she absolutely refused to. She was scared that everyone would find out about my ordeal if she did…”

“Wasn’t your grandmother just letting that beast walk free by doing that?”

“I know.” Feng Rubing was glum. “But you should also understand how my grandmother felt then; she just wanted to get things over and done with. After the transfer was done, Grandma immediately left Linhe Province again and filed the paperwork for me to be enrolled in Guangyang First Middle School. By that time, however, I had been damaged physically and emotionally. Moreover, Guangyang wasn’t all that far from Linhe. I didn’t dare to go to school at all. Firstly, if the students found out about my past, they would reject and ostracize me. Secondly, I was scared that that man would find me at school, so I chose to study at home instead. When it was time for university entrance exams, I chose to sign myself up for An University, since it was far from Guangyang. At that time, I really wanted to choose a major that was related to reducing violence and keeping peace, but due to my health, I chose forensic science instead. Maybe because Grandma had been living in fear for such a long time, she was in a bad shape physically when I started uni. In order to quickly earn enough money to treat her condition and keep Qiqi fed, I threw myself into my studies, graduating early so that I could join the workforce. However, I had only just gotten a job when Grandma passed away, leaving me and Qiqi to fend for ourselves.”

After saying all that, she breathed a long sigh. “That’s the story of the past that you so wanted to know. I’ve told you all that I should. I hope that you won’t go poking around anymore after this. I don’t want more people to know about this dark incident, especially Qiqi. She’s currently in her rebellious phase, so she doesn’t trust me all that much. If she catches wind of this, she would surely look down on me. She would be more prone to ignoring my words in the future then.”

Her experience shocked Rong Jian and made his heart ache, but he was even more focused on something else now. He couldn’t help but ask her, “Does this have anything to do with your relationship with Li Jianyun?”

“Yes.” It was the first time Feng Rubing talked about Li Jianyun in front of him. “I discovered that he had sneakily followed Qiqi a few times.”

“What? That actually happened? Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I thought I could protect Qiqi.”

“You… sigh!” Rong Jian had no words. After a pause, he asked once again, “And after that? What else did Li Jianyun do?”

According to what he knew of Feng Qiqi, she would definitely come asking for his help if she was being harassed by some awful man. But since Feng Qiqi hadn’t brought anything up to him, then that probably meant she didn’t know that Li Jianyun had been following her. Hence, Li Jianyun probably had switched target to Feng Rubing.

“After I found out about that, I gave a sharp warning to him. I told him that if he dared to continue following Qiqi, I would call the police. I didn’t expect him to threaten me with a clip of Qiqi showering!”

“What? That damn b*stard! That animal!” Rong Jian was enraged, but he was still confused. “How did he get his hands on a video of Qiqi showering?”

“I don’t know, but the girl in the video was most definitely Qiqi.”

“Could he have sneaked into your home and installed spy cameras in there?”

“I thought the same, so I immediately went home to check every nook and cranny, but I didn’t find any spy cameras. If he could film Qiqi while she was in the shower, then he definitely could’ve filmed me as well. Still, he threatened me with a clip of her showering, so it showed that he didn’t film it in our house. Later on, I remembered that Qiqi had signed up for a swimming class during summer break, so I went over to the pool to take a look and confirmed that he had filmed her there. He then continued to use Qiqi’s video to threaten me—”

“Why didn’t you tell me or the police?” Rong Jian cut her off angrily.

Feng Rubing lowered her gaze. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

“You didn’t want to bother me, or you didn’t want to see me?”

Feng Rubing was rendered wordless, and she didn’t continue to speak.

Exasperated, Rong Jian decided to ask instead, “So you willingly kept giving Li Jianyun your money? And in order not to expose yourself, you dealt in cash?”

“I had no choice. I wanted to protect Qiqi.”

Rong Jian was furious. “You’re part of law enforcement as well, Rubing. I thought you already knew that weakness and concessions would only enable criminals.”

When he was looking into Li Jianyun’s financial situation, Rong Jian’s teammate said that Li Jianyun’s often spoke about a woman who gave him money, but Rong Jian couldn’t find anything in Li Jianyun’s card transactions. Initially, Rong Jian thought that Li Jianyun was just bluffing when he said that out of machismo. It was only now that he understood what was going on.

Seeing Feng Rubing silent again, Rong Jian squashed his anger and asked, “What exactly happened on the night that Li Jianyun died?”

“I don’t know, because I really never went to the place of the murder. I’m not the killer!”

“I know that you aren’t, but he called you right before he died!”

“He did call me, but it was the same thing as always. He just did his usual harassment routine.”

“Asking you for money?”

“No.”

“Then what did he say?”

“He said…” Feng Rubing halted with some hesitancy. A look of shame came over her face.

Rong Jian picked up on that odd expression of hers, but he continued anyway, unsurprised by it, “Did he ask for something else other than money?”

Something flashed across Feng Rubing’s eyes. In the end, she nodded. “He wanted me to sleep with him.”

“What? Damn it! That’s shameless!” Rong Jian’s knuckles cracked from being clutched so tightly. He now wished to retrieve Li Jianyun’s corpse and pummel it.

Feng Rubing was now a little calmer as she spoke, her speech slower than before. “He initially just wanted to blackmail me for money, but I’m not sure why he changed courses later and tried to get me to sleep with him. He said if I did, he would erase that video of Qiqi entirely. I didn’t agree, so I gave him money a few more times in hopes that he would delete it. But even though he took the money, he wouldn’t delete it. He was insistent that I sleep with him. You probably remember that I recently changed the locks for my house. I’m not sure what trickery he pulled, but he sneaked into our home and stole some underwear.”

Rong Jian immediately recalled the pair of panties with a picture of a fox on it.

“On the night of his death, he called me again and harassed me. I realized that he wouldn’t stop, so I thought of reporting him to the police, but I hadn’t thought that he would die before I could do that.”

Those words of hers disappointed Rong Jian; they weren’t useful for cracking the case. He sighed and thought about it. “Tell me in detail what he said to you that night.”

“I have the recordings of our call on my phone,” Feng Rubing replied after a moment’s pause.

He was overjoyed. “Where’s your phone?”

“At home. It probably switched off automatically because it’s out of battery.”

“I’ll go to your home now.” Rong Jian suddenly got up, but he stopped before he could turn and leave. He didn’t feel comfortable leaving Feng Rubing alone in the hospital.

He gave it some thought. He didn’t know that Feng Qiqi already knew about Feng Rubing’s situation, so he simply called up Rong Ying first and got her to think of a way to get Feng Qiqi’s key and deliver it to Feng Rubing’s ward. After that, he got Liu Xiaofan to come to the hospital to take the key and retrieve Feng Rubing’s phone from her home.

Once he had everything arranged, he sat down to mull over Feng Rubing’s words in an attempt to find something that would help with the case, his brows furrowing tightly.

“Rong Jian.”

“Hm?” He looked up in surprise.

“I’ve already come clean with you, so don’t go to Linhe or Guangyang to look into things, okay? Qiqi is a smart egg; I’m worried that she’ll pick up on it. I really don’t want her to know about that dark past of mine. I’m especially worried that she’d let herself go because of her rebelliousness and make the same mistakes as I did.” Feng Rubing looked at Rong Jian pleadingly, her eyes filled with tears.

This was the first time that she showed herself in such a vulnerable light in front of him; it made Rong Jian’s heart ache. Hence, he didn’t think twice before nodding. He then reached out to try and wipe her tears, but she averted her gaze, causing him to wipe at thin air.

“Don’t treat me so nicely. I’m not worthy.”

Rong Jian slowly drew back his hand and looked at her with pity. He said to her solemnly, “Rubing, what I heard today did indeed shock me, but more than that, my heart aches for you. You were so young when you suffered all of that. If I had met you earlier, wouldn’t things have been better? I could have done my best to protect you then…”

“There are no ‘ifs’ in this world. Reality is exactly that—reality. No one can escape it.” Feng Rubing regained her usual distantness on her face.

“It’s true that we can’t escape reality, but if this is the reason you kept refusing me, then I hope that you’ll choose to forget this and start afresh with me.”

“Start afresh? You don’t mind my past?”

“Who hasn’t taken a wrong turn at some point in life? I don’t care about your past. To me, your current self is the most important here!”

“Don’t answer so hastily.” Feng Rubing chuckled.

Her distrustful demeanor wounded Rong Jian, and he gave a pained laugh before he said, “I’ve already braced myself.”

“Huh?”

“I already had several guesses when I realized that you clearly care for me but wouldn’t accept me no matter what.”

Feng Rubing’s gaze jittered, but she quickly hid away the emotion she felt. “Even if you don’t mind, I do! I will never be able to forget that dark path I walked! A mistake is a mistake, and I should bear the punishment for it. I cannot excuse it with my youthful foolishness,” she said solemnly.

“Don’t be so stubborn. Giving me a chance is also equivalent to giving yourself another chance!”

“I’m not being stubborn, and I don’t need whatever chance you’re giving me. Also, you said earlier that I care for you. Well, let me tell you this: that’s all just in your head. Due to the trauma I experienced back then, I don’t feel anything for men. I’ve told you everything that I should. Now leave.”

“Rubing!” When he saw her about to lie back down, Rong Jian caught her hands in a fit of emotion. “Please, listen to me…”

“Let me go!”

“Rubing, I—”

Rong Jian’s phone rang right then.